The Kansas City Chiefs defeated the Miami Dolphins, 24-10, on Sunday afternoon to move to 3-0 on the season.
Leading by a touchdown with six minutes remaining in the game, Chiefs cornerback Nohl Williams broke up a fourth-down pass and thwarted a potential game-tying drive by Miami, effectively ending the Dolphins’ last realistic chance of matching Kansas City on the scoreboard.
The Chiefs then took advantage of the newfound field position soon after when quarterback Patrick Mahomes found tight end Travis Kelce for an 11-yard touchdown that essentially put the game away.
“[The Dolphins] fly around. We knew it’d be four quarters of football, and that’s what it took,” said Head Coach Andy Reid. “We have plenty of things to work on, but it’s great to be 3-0.”
Indeed, the Dolphins – despite an 0-2 record heading into the game – fought for 60 minutes on Sunday.
Kansas City raced out to an early lead when tailback Ken Walker plowed ahead for a 10-yard touchdown on the Chiefs’ opening series, but Miami quickly responded with a 17-play, 91-yard drive that knotted the score at seven points apiece.
The Chiefs then answered with another touchdown series – a 10-play, 65-yard drive – that ended with a 5-yard touchdown grab by Walker, but what began as a track meet suddenly devolved into a rock fight as the two teams combined for just three total points over the following nine drives between them.
Each team recorded a failed fourth-down conversion and a turnover as part of that sequence, but notably for the Chiefs’ defense, despite Miami possessions that drove into Kansas City territory on five consecutive occasions following the initial touchdown drive, the Dolphins were limited to just three total points over the remainder of the game.
“We’re going to have those games where we face a lot of adversity,” said defensive lineman Chris Jones. “I think, coming into today, we didn’t start how we wanted to, but we were able to get the win.”
The Chiefs’ offense turned in an 80-yard series early in the fourth quarter that culminated in a 34-yard field goal by kicker Harrison Butker, pushing Kansas City’s lead to seven points, but the result was still in question when Miami took over with 11 minutes remaining in the fourth quarter.
The Dolphins were driving, too, with two third-down conversions on the series before coming up short on third down at midfield, setting up a pivotal 4th-and-5 that Williams successfully defended.
Mahomes found Kelce in the end zone soon after, and that was that.
“At the end of the day, we won the football game,” Mahomes said. “Obviously, we didn’t play to our standard that we hold ourselves to – especially in the middle part of the game – but I thought we found a way to come together at the end of the game.”
Mahomes completed 20-of-24 passes for 246 yards and two touchdowns in the game, moving past Joe Montana for the 20th-most passing touchdowns in NFL history (with 247). He was particularly effective while using play-action once again, completing 11-of-12 passes for 183 yards and a score.
His efforts helped the Chiefs remain perfect on the season through three weeks, and while it wasn’t always pretty on Sunday, the result was all that mattered.
“It’ll be a learning experience for us,” Mahomes said. “We have to come with our A-game every single time in order to win, but at the end of the day, we’re 3-0.”
In terms of injuries, Coach Reid reported following the game that the Chiefs came out of the matchup with a clean bill of health.
Next up, the Chiefs will travel to Las Vegas next weekend for a divisional contest against the Raiders.
